Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Genre: Scifi / Fantasy, 4 stars, YA, Diverse
People who should read this: If you love epic fantasies without the drawn out world building, con men, and some fun plot twists.
*This is an honest review of the ARC*
*Also… this review was supposed to be up before my two week trip but I’m human and things happen. I’m back though. Posting will resume its regularly scheduled programming.*
I would like to take a moment to thank my friend for letting me borrow her ARC of Blood Heir. Especially since this is the version that caused all the uproar. I get it… I’m white. I also read the book really fast, rushing to get it to the next anxiously waiting friend . Yet, I still think that my opinion matters. I have feels too. I’m not innately racist just because of my skin color. If you think that though, than you might want to look up what the word racist means.
Anyways.
This is my sole opinion. It’s not the word of God. You can take it or leave it. You can highly disagree or agree. You can click away from my blog, never to return. That’s okay. I feel a duty to say my peace because I feel bad for the author and I think the way things went down was wrong. I’m also mad that the uproar ruined the book. Like, now I know what was going to happen. If you are one of the few people that don’t know, I’m going to be vague and just refer to the moment as ‘the scene’ so that it doesn’t spoil what happens for you.
And if you don't know what I’m referring to at all - someone read the ARC and was extremely offended by a scene, claiming that it was racist. She then took to twitter and a lot of people backed her up even though they hadn’t read the book.
First off… I didn’t see anything wrong with the scene. *gasp* That was so expected. I’m white, how can I see anything different?
The first question I must ask, is Ana actually white? Do we have the same dynamics here? Except for a race that was described as almost albino white? I never got the impression that anyone was light skinned. This might be where reading really fast did me a disservice. Zhao took great care to make sure that each character was very unique in their features and skin tone. So who else was going to make the sacrifice if it wasn’t for another ‘colored’ person? Who? Who?
Blood Heir deals with a lot of indentured servitude. It’s a tough topic. A lot of people and different races have been forced to go through this. Especially people who would essentially sell their souls to flee an unsafe country. Books like Zhao’s are important because we can’t forget the darkness that humans can do. We can’t hide from these stories just because they make us uncomfortable.
So in the end, I’m really disappointed in what happened. One person caused such an uproar that this amazing story, with a lot of very important points, could have been kept from everyone. One opinion… crazy. Let’s use this moment as a lesson of what our words can do. All we ever say is our opinion. But what is really right? Who even knows who is right? So be careful in what you put out into the world. I’m not saying that a person doesn’t have a right to believe what they believed. Clearly the scene was a trigger. In the wide world of storytelling though, it wasn’t how she described it.
Wow did I go on a ramble there. Are you still with me? Do you still want to hear my thoughts on the whole book?
Well if you are and you haven’t figured it out yet, I really liked this book. I’m not an epic fantasy person. I cringe away from the large world building. But Blood Heir didn’t have any of that. The world is huge and I got to know all of it, but there was so much plot mixed in that I wasn’t bored. I wasn’t waiting for the next thing to happen.
I really loved how nothing came easy for the characters either. They couldn’t just magically sneak into some party or castle to carry on their revenge plot. It was very realistic, not something I always come across in storytelling. Also, Zhao really kept her characters on their path. They made decisions that matched who they were. When they deviated, it made sense. They evolved and changed.
All in all. I could gush about this story forever. The writing was lyrical. The plot interesting. The characters were people I could root for. And perfectly dark for my soul. Yes, there are problems. The flashbacks were a little disjointed and the throne room scene at the end was confusing. But I’m going to ignore all of that and just ask you to read the book. Definitely one of the top books for me this year. I can’t wait to own my own copy. Dear Santa… Here’s my book list.
Happy Reading
Love Kait
Reading Challenge: 102/110